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This case study describes the development, application and commercialisation of an open source tool, BSMBench that enables supercomputer vendors and computing centres to benchmark their system's performance. It comprehensively informs the design and testing of new computing architectures well beyond other benchmarking tools on the market, such as Linpack.
The significance of our code is that, unlike other benchmarking tools, it interpolates from a communication- to a computation-dominated regime simply by varying the (physics) parameters in the code, thus providing a perfect benchmark suite to test the response of modern multi-CPU systems along this axis. The impact of this work has great reach: a start-up company, BSMbench Ltd, has been founded to develop and commercialise the software; adopters have included IBM - one of the giants of the supercomputer world (where it uncovered errors in their compilers); it has been deployed by Fujitsu to validate its systems, by HPC Wales, a multi-site, commercially focussed national computer centre and by Transtec, an HPC company employing over 150 staff; and tutorial articles about BSMBench have appeared in magazines such as Linux Format.
This software tool spawned from our research into "Beyond the Standard Model" (BSM) physics which aims to understand the Higgs mechanism in particle physics at a fundamental level. This involved simulating quantum field theories using bespoke code on some of the fastest supercomputers on the planet.
Professor Zoe Trodd has contributed to changes in antislavery policy debate and practice at local, national and international levels—from lawyers' societies and school teachers, to national non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the European Parliament—through a series of publications, consultations, public talks, and contributions to teaching and digital resources about contemporary slavery and abolitionism. Drawing on her own research, as well as research into historic forms of slave resistance and literary abolitionism by two other professors in the UoA, she has intervened in contemporary abolitionism by advising the government bodies, NGOs and community organisations working to liberate slaves, pass antislavery legislation and remove slavery from industries' supply chains.
The pedagogic research undertaken by the School of Law has produced an ambitious and innovative model of clinical legal education: the in-house live client model, which offers a university-based free legal service offering full representation to private clients and NGOs in the form of the Student Law Office. The Student Law Office integrates supervised legal service in the law curriculum, thereby delivering free access to justice to the wider community whilst benefiting the learning environment. Impact is three-fold:
The work described here has impacted on European policy and standards concerning energy efficiency in Building Services.
The impact arises from two Welsh School of Architecture led and European Commission funded projects, HARMONAC (focussed on inspection of air-conditioning systems) and iSERV (focussed on automatic system monitoring and feedback). These pan-European projects demonstrate achieved energy savings of up to 33% of total building electricity use in individual buildings, and potential savings up to €60Bn. These projects demonstrably impacted the recast European Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) and the revision of EU Standards (European Committee for Standardisation (CEN)).
Collaboration between Imperial College Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Surgery led to the development of active constraint robot solutions which augment surgeon skills so that joint replacement components are implanted accurately and successfully. This led to the founding of Acrobot to develop innovative surgical technologies. Acrobot was acquired by Stanmore Implants Worldwide in 2010. An orthopaedic stereotaxic instrument, based on Imperial research, obtained US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance in 2013. This has led to Mako-Surgical purchasing Stanmore Implants Acrobot technology in April 2013.
Challenging simplistic depictions of Ireland's revolutionary past, Fearghal McGarry's research has facilitated greater public understanding of the causes and consequences of political violence in Ireland. Through impacts arising from an innovative collaboration with a documentary film-maker, as well as through the influence of his research on public discourse, cultural life, civil society and education, McGarry's work has enhanced public understanding by extending the range and quality of historical evidence, contributing to a more meaningful public engagement with both history and commemorative processes within the context of post-conflict Northern Ireland and the current `decade of centenaries'.
In a series of training studies on children between the ages of 5 and 12 years, a research team at the Department of Psychology successfully demonstrated that substantial improvements in roadside decision-making and behaviour can be achieved in children as young as 5 years. Based on their findings, the team developed and evaluated a training intervention (Kerbcraft) aimed at improving children's pedestrian skills through practical roadside activities which was formally adopted by the UK government. Since 2008, the majority of 5-7 year old children in the UK have received formal pedestrian skills training using Kerbcraft either in its full or adapted form. Kerbcraft now plays a key role in the UK Government's road safety strategy and has been cited as an example of best practice by the World Health Organisation and safety agencies across Europe, the US, Australia and in developing countries such as Ethiopia and Bangladesh.
Our research showed that powered rotation oscillation toothbrushes were superior to manual toothbrushes for the removal of plaque and reduction of gingivitis. This information has had impacts on national public policy, on commerce and on society.
Professor Paul Grout has had a significant impact on national policy on the delivery of public services by the private sector in the last five years. His research undertaken at the University of Bristol on private provision by regulated utility companies and public private partnerships, using both economic theory and empirical studies, paved the way for his central involvement in, and directly informed, key regulatory decisions. These decisions impact materially on almost every individual and organisation in the UK. His research also directly led to his appointment in 2012 to the Board of Ofgem (the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority), the UK energy regulator.
A body of research on agricultural geography, with a strong regional focus on the Welsh Marches (the English counties bordering Wales), has led to changes in conservation policy and practice relating to rare breeds, primarily at the national level but also internationally; it has shaped farming policy at the regional level, particularly in Herefordshire, specifically leading to increased diversification in the farming sector across the county; and it has stimulated policy debate around the place of farming in society.